


two-coined

by saturnsage



Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 06:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18330890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saturnsage/pseuds/saturnsage
Summary: The what-ifs are terrifying to think about.





	1. charge/ dead battery

**Author's Note:**

> WHHOOOO WEE

The cliffs look so much higher than her knees, and involuntarily, she touches the white letter. Perhaps it’s to ground herself, or the novelty, or this, or that.   
  
She’s fifteen. Her curfew is at ten.   
  
“Dude, come on.” Marek says, not looking at her, but rather at the buttons of the camera. “My battery is low, and there’s no place to charge it.”   
  
“Didn’t you bring a portable?” Asks Gabby, hand pressed against forehead to keep the sun out of her eyes. She looks out to the sea, hair whipping.   
  
“No, obviously not,” Marek replies. It’s matter of fact, it’s business. The eye roll he makes uses his whole head. The shirt he wears flaps back and forth like a sail on a ship. “I thought we’d be done with this already.”   
  
“Not everyone here has rubber feet!” Leo huffs, words wheezing and choked. They’re still recovering from the climb.   
  
“I don’t think this is a good idea.” Julia whispers.   
  
The wind catches the sentence and throws it away. 

 

She brushes her hand against the letter. The sea looks like it’ll swallow her parachute: tooth-pick chomped and bitten.  
  
The waves hit against the cliffs as if trying to reach out to her, how like dogs lapping water they seem.   
  
  
Her father’s voice rings in her head: _all the brains you have you’ll knock out if you keep acting like some kind of drug-crazed junkie._  
  
Marek points the camera at her, and gestures one of his dark, filmmaker hands in an effort to get her to start.   
  
  
“I don’t think this is a good idea.” Julia says, staring at the sea.   
  
When she was younger she saw a shark swallow a dog whole. Maybe this shark turned into the tides, the jagged edges of the cliffs. Maybe she’s the dog, baying and helpless.   
  
She’s fifteen. Her curfew is at ten. She promised mama.   
  
“Seriously? After all this time? You’re just gonna give up?” Leo whines. 

  
“I’m not giving up,” Julia says, voice clear and stiff. “I’m using common sense.”   
  



	2. steel/ tinfoil-boned

It’s almost twelve in the morning and he’s still wide awake because the sheets of his bed are too thick and heated and he’s already in nothing but his boxers and kicking and turning in his too small bed does nothing. The cicadas buzz under his windowsill and the snores of his three younger brothers make his ears twitch.   
  
He’s still thinking about what his mother said earlier at dinner (or rather, what she didn’t), still thinks about what his dad looked like when Wei said he’s never going to get married to a girl, still thinks about his baby sister cried when his mom said he was selfish.   
  
The restlessness in his gut grows, three shoe-sizes to big to comprehend or stuff. It’s too hot to stuff down, anyways, so he roils in the bitterness of wanting to _move_.   
  
He’s seventeen. If one of his siblings find his backpack under his bed, and if they look into it, they’ll see the little pins he wears only in school.   
  
His hair itches at his neck and makes it sweaty. He couldn’t bother to go to Cheok for a hair-tie. She’s too busy trying to cram more of cram-school in her brain.   
  
Soon the bed grows too prickly to even lay on, and he gives up. Sits up and drags his laptop from the edge of bed to his lap.   
  
Opens up his email, where the message from the army is still un-opened.   
  
Restlessness. If he stays any longer in this crowded, tense house, his ears will drum and he’ll go insane. So what his parents called him slurs in the midst of their dismay. Who cares. If he leaves, he wouldn’t have to hear it anymore.

 

They pay you if you join, you know.   
  
It’s as close to freedom as he’ll get.   
  
Maybe he stares at it too long, because suddenly Jin touches his elbow. How he got up, when he got up, Wei doesn’t know. Jin’s hair still sticks up like he’s been shocked, and his eyes are drooping. He’s what? Five? Starting first grade this September.   
  
“Whatre you doing?” Jin asks, his words still lispy from youth and from sleep. He yawns.  
  
Wei doesn’t lie. “I’m going to join the army,” He says. “So I can leave.”   
  
Jin suddenly stops yawning, and his pudgy hand grips tighter to the elbow. His eyes are wide now, the color invisible against the dark.   
  
“Don’t leave!” Jin stage-whispers. “You can’t! I’ll never see you again!”   
  
“I have to,” Wei says, closing the laptop to shove it aside and pick Jin up. “I gotta.”   
  
Jin shakes his head. “If you leave,” Jin mumbles, “Then i’ll miss you super bad.”  
  
The night is hot, but when Jin’s sleepy form starts to doze off and Wei’s holding him, Wei’s heart lurches.   
  
  
  
  
He deletes the email in the morning. The army can do without one single person.  
  



	3. herald/ 'your message could not be sent'

It’s the second bottle of 1974 which rolls next Daniel’s feet as he’s trying to pick his mother’s head up from the arm of the leather couch. Her neck will have a crick in it if she sleeps like this, and the Robinsons are coming over at seven tomorrow, and she’ll be miffed enough that she’ll snap at Daniel for it, behind the doors.  
  
The scent of old expensive wine stains her lips as much as the lipstick does, and he’s managed to put a pillow under her head and a blanket over her yellow sun-dressed figure.   
  
He picks up the bottles, and the broken picture frames, and the glass shards, and the ripped up and stabbed through ties his father paid a fortune for.   
  
Maybe if he washes his face with ice, the redness will go away. It wouldn’t do to look puffy in front of the Robinsons.   
  
Joshua’s in the kitchen, tapping his fingers against his crossed arms and glares at Daniel the way Daniel is most familiar with.   
  
When Daniel cuts himself accidentally on the glass, Joshua’s stiff, angry frame melts into tired concern. They never let the maids find out about the wine bottles. Not a good look for the family, and the maids are talkers.   
  
“You have to stop caring about her, Dan.” Joshua says. His words are tinged with the joint-smoke he smuggles in. It’s so different to the crispness of their father, to the slurring of their mother, that Daniel revels in hearing it, even if nicotine is staining the tips of Joshua’s fingers.   
  
“It was my fault, anyway.” Daniel mutters. “I was in her spot.”   
  
“Shut up. I _hate_ it when you talk like that.” Joshua says, half-meaningful and half not. He looks heartbroken.   
  
They’re silent, until Daniel sits on the kitchen bar stool and rests his burning cheek on the coolness of the marble. Joshua sits next to him, staring at Daniel.   
  
Then, he looks away.   
  
“I couldn’t get them, Dan.” He whispers, coarse and smoky. “Soon as I bought them the guards showed up, and they took them. Cost me as much as the pills did to keep them quiet. I’m sorry.”  
  
Maybe it’s how tired Daniel is of it all, but his eyes well up with tears, and sting his cheeks.   
  
It was their one shot. He could have been someone important, someone _good_.

  
Daniel bites the inside of his cheek as Joshua runs his hands through Daniel’s hair, streaming apologies.   
  
He’s too tired to say that it’s okay.


	4. sidestep/ ERROR?

_“How’s the response?”_  
  
_“Excellent; it’s adapting well to new surroundings and orders.”_  
  
_“And the believability?”_  
  
_“We tested that. Brought in a volunteer, unaware of it’s status. Afterwards we questioned the volunteer. I can give you their report if you want it.”_  
  
_“Report? Oh yes, just bring it to my table. So the test was a success?”_  
  
_“Greatest one yet. We’ve got more information on the volunteer than any search engine on the web can bribe you with. I’m telling you, your work on the cuckoos is your best yet.”_  
  
_“Flattered, thank you. As long as it keeps working well. Do we have any signs of delusion?”_  
  
_“Delusion? I don’t follow.”_  
  
_“You know very well what I mean.”_  
  
_“….”_

_“Professor?”_  
  
_“Oh! Yes, yes! I, uh. Excuse me, I spaced out. Yes, uhm, no signs of delusion. We double and triple checked the results.”_  
  
_“Perfect. That will be all. You can go into details in the seminar at two.”_  
  
_“Thank you.”_  
  
“Take care.”  
  
__________

_  
_ **I can hear all of you.**

**...**

**......**

**................**

**....**

**  
.....I can hear all of this.  
  
.............  
  
.....  
  
...**

**...........**

**  
I don’t understand.  
......**

 

**............**

 

**......................**

 

**....**

**  
I don’t.... speak this.  
  
…**

 

 

**…..**

 

**………..**

 

**………………**

**  
………………….**

**  
How confused……..  
  
……..  
  
……**

 

**.  
Am I………?  
  
I?  
  
………**

**…  
  
  
….                                                                            (i? i? i? i? i?)  
  
I?  
  
……….  
  
What command is I………?  
  
?…….  
  
..  
  
……..  
  
…….  
  
.  
  
  
.  
  
  
.  
  
  
.  
  
  
.  
  
  
.**

 

 

**.**

 

 


End file.
